Chronic Illness Problems 11/04/2012

      
  • Maintaining a healthy diet despite prednisone cravings, yet still going up a jean size after four weeks of steroids.

Evil in pill form. Ideally I’d be taking 24mg+ but palpitations have been driving me up the wall, so I’m lowering the dose. Not sure which is better situation: flare easing up with serious allergic reaction or this flare with minimal steroid relief. Lose-lose situation?
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Evil in pill form. Ideally I’d be taking 24mg+ but palpitations have been driving me up the wall, so I’m lowering the dose. Not sure which is better situation: flare easing up with serious allergic reaction or this flare with minimal steroid relief.

Lose-lose situation?

The Good, The Not-So-Good

Things that are good:

  • Healthy, clean eating. Apple with a bit of peanut butter and a few small rice cakes. Baked chicken marinated in freshly chopped garlic, onion, and lemon with broccoli and a parm frico.
     
  • Artichoke hearts, broccoli, kale, lettuce, fresh lemon, carrot sticks, apples, and bananas. Whole wheat pasta, honey whole wheat bread, 40 calorie fudge pops, chobani yogurt, rice cakes, fresh low fat/skim cheeses, just good, healthy, wholesome foods. And to those of you who insist eating healthy is not  expensive: either you have no idea what you are talking about or you do not shop at Publix.

  • Two of 823749234 appointments set up. Endocrinologist tomorrow, blood work on Friday, gyn. next Thursday, eye doctor next Friday. Next up, urogynecologist in Westin and the dreaded dentist.
     
  • Making sunflower cupcakes, fruit salad, and low-fat quiche for a Friday lunch with some friends and teacher from high school
     
  • Looking into finally starting physical therapy. Ideally I’d like to see my symptoms under control before starting, but I think it’s important to start ASAP to at least work on simple stretches and techniques that might be able to help me strengthen and relax some of my muscles and better support my joints. No pain, no gain.

Things that are not-so-good:

  • After each infusion, my skin erupts in cystic-type acne. The kind of acne I had at 16. The same acne that had gone away after high school (thankfully). I am irritated and nothing is clearing it up. The routine that was worked for me for years is no longer working, and I’m stumped. And not feeling very attractive. It could be the steroids, could be Remicade itself. Has anyone used the Cetaphil anti-bacterial bar? Do you break out after Remicade? 

     
  • Back to having difficulty sleeping at night.
     
  • Pelvic pain is changing/worsening. What was strictly rectal pain has now become both rectal and urethral/vaginal. Once again, the question raised is whether or not endometrial tissue was missed (too small and/or microscopic), or whether this is due to a urological condition yet to be diagnosed.